JP 2009-073627A (Patent Document 1) discloses an example of article storage facilities as described above. With the configuration of Patent Document 1, an elevating scaffold capable of ascending and descending in a movement space in front of article storage shelves is provided. This allows a maintenance work for lower portions of the article storage shelves to be performed from the floor without using the elevating scaffold, and, for higher portions of the article storage shelves, for which the operator on the floor is unable to perform a maintenance work, allows the operator to perform a maintenance work on the article storage shelves by climbing on the elevating scaffold. In other words, the elevating scaffold is configured to be capable of moving up and down across a withdrawal height that is set on the upper side from the movement range in the above-described movement space of the transfer device included in the transport device in the vertical direction and a working height that is set in an intermediate location in the movement space in the vertical direction. Also, in a state in which the elevating scaffold is caused to descend from the withdrawal height to the working height, and the elevating scaffold is supported by a support body for supporting the elevating scaffold located at the working height, the operator climbs on the elevating scaffold and performs a maintenance work. Accordingly, when the elevating scaffold has been lowered to the working height, the elevating scaffold is supported on the support body, and thereby the elevating scaffold is stabilized, making it easy for the operator to perform a maintenance work in a state in which he or she is on the elevating scaffold. When no maintenance work is performed, the elevating scaffold is elevated to the withdrawal height, thus allowing the transport device to transport articles using the space below the elevating scaffold.
For article storage facilities, article storage shelves having large heights may sometimes be installed in order to increase the article storage efficiency. In such a case, the range for which the operator on the floor cannot perform a maintenance work in the vertical direction of the article storage shelves is wide in the vertical direction. However, in the article storage facility of Patent Document 1, only a single working height is set in the vertical direction, and therefore the range for which a maintenance work can be performed from the elevating scaffold at the working height is limited in the vertical direction. Accordingly, there will be locations in the article storage shelves for which a maintenance work cannot be performed.
It is conceivable to set a plurality of working heights in order to eliminate locations for which a maintenance work cannot be performed. However, the support body that supports the elevating scaffold protrudes toward the movement space, and thus the elevating scaffold cannot be moved below the height at which the support body is located. This has made it impossible to set a plurality of working heights.
As such, the method disclosed in Patent Document 1 poses a problem in that an appropriate maintenance work cannot be carried out for article storage shelves with large heights.